As usual, work is pretty much done for today so I'm going to stream for a couple hours some World of Tanks and perhaps some World of Warships depending of how things will go.
Also may do some platooning or Tank Requests, we will see.

- Storm states that it's not as simple as it looks to release "similar" models together in HD (Pershing and Super Pershing etc.)
- Storm confirms that Chinese vehicles are not in priority for HD (one of the reasons is that the majority of Chinese market is playing on crappy computers). The only exception are premium tanks.
- Storm is not aware of any possible T-34-3 and 112 buffs;
- There are plans to rework the WoT engine to work better on higher resolutions but "no comment"
- Apparently, Storm had old info: the problem with microlags (one of them at least) is actually known and will be fixed in one of the upcoming patches;
- Super Pershing will not get a gun buff, but there are plans for buff to its frontal armor
- 9.8 date: "when it's done it's done";
- Storm personally has no info on Japanese tank destroyers (won't answer questions about them).

It's known that I don't care much about Wargaming League, mainly now, after getting my AMX 13 57 video targeted by one of their hosts that didn't have any basis for his accusation and all could have been avoided if he simply contacted WG staff first, I'm just gonna leave the print screen here:

Why my video was the one targeted and not another Community Contributor video I have no idea, but have to point out WGL personnel are not real WG staffmembers and Wargaming was very fast to come to my defense which was quite nice of them.
I don't have to answer to WGL personnel and I also don't have any contractual obligations with any of them but my respect lies solely with WG staff. And, if things were handled in a proper private manner I actually would have kindly accepted the request and added the information to my video and this would never have been written. Still, no hard feelings taken. Don't mistake Latina passion for Caucasian rage.

But back to the point, during the Grand Finals 50 AMX 13 57 tanks will be given away for those who share their predictions worldwide, more information can be found on the Grand Finals site but it wasn't working quite well so took a printscreen:

And the best part of it all, the Mighty Jingles just announced on today's "Mingles with Jingles" that he will be a guest and commentator of the event, its the first time that will say this: I'm excited to watch a WGL event!

this time, we will have a look at how Himmelsdorf was built, based on an interview with Aleksandr Shilyaev, the Wargaming director of global operations for meta-games and mobile products.

The idea to create Himmelsdorf came because after Karelia, Prokhorovka and Malinovka, the game needed a city map. Style-wise, the map resembled the armored clashes that took place late in the war in Berlin for example. As the first city map, it was a challenge as for example the building production had to be optimized (streamlined). After Himmelsdorf, all the other city maps were easier to make as the process was already there.

There is no "Himmelsdorf" in real life. The map uses elements from several places but it is overall based on the mapmaker artists' fantasy. It was designed for comfortable gameplay, not realism. The map was originally supposed to be called "Khrensdorf" (a Russian joke, "khren" means horseraddish but also "nonsense") but there were issues with the localization of this name and it was changed to "Himmelsdorf" instead. After this map, the developers started working on its Soviet-themed counterpart, the result of which became Ensk.

The map was not themed to be exactly German, it was supposed to be simply European. That's why the developers, who visited Europe in the past brought their photos and those photos became the basis of the buildings and design of the map. Since the tourists photographed mostly known buildings, it turned out however that what the developers thought as "typical" European architecture was in fact something unique - for example the red "town hall" on the map is in fact the Royal Palace in Warsaw. The horse statue was taken from the Hohenzollern bridge in Köln (respectively old pictures of it).

this time, Yuri Pasholok visited the Saumur museum and had a look at the AMX-30 prototype. The history of the AMX-30 originated in the Europanzer project that was started in 1956. The vehicle was supposed to fit the 30 ton class (hence the name) and was supposed to have the power to weight of 30 hp/t and maximum speed of 65 km/h. Apart from two German company groups, AMX also participated in the program. In the end, the program had two results - the German Standartpanzer (also known as Leopard 1) and the French AMX-30. First two prototypes were built in 1960, another 7 in early 1963.

It's worth noting that the mass-produced vehicle (AMX-30B) was quite different from what came out of the testing. The vehicle was "perfected" for quite some time - for example some expert decided to put a hatch in the front. The early prototype was quite complicated in its own right - both the turret and the hull. It was "saved" by the Saumur museum but currently it is in very sorry state. Unfortunately, this is also not an exception as out of cca 800 vehicles owned by the museum, only few hundred are displayed to public and the rest is rusting away in some backyard of the whole building comples the way this prototype does. The effect of the Saumur weather is clearly visible on the vehicle as well as on the AMX-30C standing next to it - only five years ago, the AMX-30C was inside the exposition hall. The prototype itself is empty - its inside was stripped of all the devices and other stuff and is very rusty. It's a shame Saumur keeps such rare vehicles in such a state.